Controversy over vote-by-mail will continue in an era of self-driving cars.
There is a lot of controversy about ballot harvesting.
First, some prefer to call it ballot collecting, since the word “harvesting” seems ominous and suggests a foul act.
Others insist that due to the potential for the underhanded activity that might occur when performing ballot collecting that the effort genuinely deserves to have the harvesting moniker.
In general, the notion is that people provided with vote-by-mail paper-based voting that enables them to vote from their homes are susceptible to all sorts of chicanery, and as such this undermines the legitimacy of the voting process.
And if the voting process is perceived as untoward it then mars the outcome of elections, which might be based on the perception of how the voting occurred or might also entail actual voting irregularities.
What kind of voting irregularities might arise?
Some assert that there are rampant chances of fraudulent voting, some of which would be clearly considered illegal, while other acts might be borderline in their deceptive nature or have an appalling stench of illegality.
For example, a voter’s mail-in ballot arrives in their mailbox and someone grabs it from the mail receptacle and proceeds to fill it in, then signs it, and either mails it or opts to carry it to a ballot submission center. Thus, in this case, the intended voter never actually saw the ballot and the interloper is masquerading as that voter.
There seems little doubt that such an act is a form of fraudulent voting.
Consider next the case of a voter receiving their ballot via mail and perhaps otherwise not necessarily intending to make use of it. Suppose that someone comes to their door and indicates they are there to pick-up the ballot, seemingly as though doing so in an official or semi-official manner. The voter might be confused or unsure of what to do, and hands over the blank ballot. The receiver then proceeds as per the prior use case and completes the ballot and submits it.
Once again, the true voter was not the actual voter, and this too is pretty clearly a fraudulent act.
Getting into shades of gray, suppose the door ringer explains that they can help the voter with the filling out of the ballot, and proceeds to sit with the voter in doing so. Step by step, this “helper” shows the voter which places to mark their votes, including who they should vote for. The voter might perceive this as valued assistance since perhaps they had little idea of what votes to cast and were also intimidated by the ballot form and hesitant to try and fill it out on their own.
The “helper” then has the voter sign the ballot and offers to make sure it will get delivered.
Is this a fraudulent act?
Assuming that the voter filled in the form and signed it without any apparent coercion, this instance is likely permitted, though there is a small twist on the aspect of proceeding to deliver the completed ballot.
In some states, such ballots are only to be turned-in by a family member, thus the “helper” might be performing an illegal act in the delivery of the ballot, assuming they were not a family member.
Some states allow that the ballot delivery can be done by anyone in the household of the voter, in addition to the possibility of being a family member. This means that if Joe, a non-family member of Jane, and yet living in the same household as Jane, he could legally deliver the ballot to a receiving center. Or, in some states, the other person could be a caregiver and not necessarily living in the household at all.
Other states allow that essentially anyone can act for a voter in terms of delivering their completed ballot. In that sense, the “helper” could be an utter stranger that perchance came to the door and sought the ballot from the voter.
Such “helpers” can collect just one or a few such ballots or might be legally able to collect dozens or even an unlimited number, depending upon the state laws covering the act.
There are more variants involved in this process.
Suppose the “helper” watches quietly while the voter marks the ballot and signs it, and then offers to deliver the ballot for the voter. Upon going out the door of the home, the “helper” then proceeds to change the voter indicated markings, opting to vote for someone other than whom the voter intended.
That’s a no-no.
Or, suppose the voter did not sign the ballot, perhaps being told by the “helper” that there is no need to do so, and in fact, the voter was reluctant to sign it because (suppose) some of the votes marked weren’t what the voter preferred (but the voter was led to those markings by the interloper). After departing with the unsigned ballot, the interloper then signs it, attempting to forge the signature of the voter.
Another big no-no.
One of the concerns underlying this whole aspect of ballot collecting is that there is a risk that the aforementioned deviousness and at times illegal voting can take place.
This risk is presumably increased due to the role of money and politics.
The alleged “helper” might have been paid to come and collect the ballot from someone’s home. On the one hand, you could claim this is a handy service to aid the collecting of ballots. At the same time, this might be an incentive for the “helper” to intentionally get ballots completed, perhaps due to getting paid by the number of ballots collected.
You might think that it doesn’t matter if the “helper” is being paid to collect the ballot, as long as they merely collect it and do not otherwise interfere or interject themselves into the voting act itself. Of course, there are some that argue that with money on the line, it is overly tempting to cross that line and exceed the proper boundaries in order to get a collectible ballot and thus earn the dough.
In some states, these “helper” collectors cannot be paid by the number of ballots and instead can only be paid by the hour. The thinking is that this reduces the incentive to cross the line when collecting ballots, though others argue that this is still a ruse and that any payment is tantamount to encouraging improper acts.
Meanwhile, others insist that these “helpers” are aiding the voters by inspiring them to cast their votes, urging them on via offering to collect and deliver ballots. Presumably, we want as many legitimate voters to readily be able to cast their votes as possible, and anything that reduces the friction associated with voting is touted as contributory to our democracy.
There are slippery slopes that raise eyebrows and seem emboldened by these practices, some point out.
Suppose the being-paid “helper” offers to split some of the money with the voter, providing an added incentive to the voter to cast a vote. Or, the “helper” intimidates or threatens the voter to fill-in and sign the ballot, presumably doing so as a desire to get the money by having another ballot to deliver.
Those kinds of acts are certainly considered illegal if proven to have occurred, though the question arises as to how it would be discovered that such acts took place, and thus, they might go undetected or ultimately unreconciled.
It lurks in the murky background and can cloud the integrity of the votes and the election results.
You can take out the money element and substitute a political motive instead. If the “helper” is politically motivated to carry out such acts, regardless of any direct payment, some worry that these ilks will occur, nonetheless.
Trying to gauge how much of this actually happens has been problematic, and likewise predicting how much it will happen going forward is equally problematic.
Indisputably, it is a whopping colossal mess.
The vote-by-mail topic continues to be a polarizing issue and spurs heated debates in many respects, including though not solely due to the ballot collecting or ballot harvesting matter (there are additional qualms about mailed ballots).
Should we dispense with vote-by-mail, some ask?
It is a necessity, some emphasize, and the use of vote-by-mail is essential since there are voters that cannot otherwise get to a voting place. Perhaps they are mobility disadvantaged and have no ready means to travel to a polling place. The vote-by-mail provision provides them an opportunity to exercise their right to vote, which otherwise might languish simply as a result of the location of where they were otherwise supposed to cast their vote.
Plus, with the pandemic and its possible aftermath, there are worries that going to polling places might be unhealthful and therefore serves as a further prompter for allowing and potentially expanding vote-by-mail capabilities.
Could though an increase in vote-by-mail lead to an increase in the various interloper deceptive schemes and possibly spark even more angst about the legitimacy of the votes?
Some believe that it would, arguing passionately that any all-told benefits of the vote-by-mail approach are unquestionably outweighed by its negatives. Others just as fervently believe that it would not delegitimize the voting and insist that the benefits indisputably outweigh the actual or perceived negative consequences.
Shifting gears, technologists are apt to find the entire topic somewhat exasperating as they would likely point out that we ought to go completely online for voting in elections.
Forget about those paper-based ballots and the archaic use of snail mail, or other kinds of physical delivery of one means or another, and just go modern and do all voting online. You could even do away with polling places, though it is conceded that they could still exist if the cost and desire to do so was still existent.
We probably will inevitably end up in an online voting world, though getting there is likely to be more arduous and controversial than you might at first assume.
A typical qualm includes the possibility that an online voter is not the actual voter, though the counterargument is that presumably facial recognition, fingerprint identification, and allied biometrics could serve as validation. Some though fret that this could serve as an alarming prospect for large-scale privacy intrusion.
Another concern is that cyber-hacking could intercept a vote and change it, for which we might not know that such illegitimate and illegal vote changes have taken place. This becomes a version of an electronic interloper, either done by a human working remotely or perhaps carried out by a devilish automated chatbot or equivalent.
And, believe it or not, you might still have the “helper” misgivings that arise with paper-based ballots, namely that a person comes to the voter and offers to assist them in casting their electronic vote. Sitting with the voter at a laptop or computer screen, or perhaps while voting on a smartphone, you can easily envision that the interloper could do many of the same dubious acts as they might do with paper-based ballots, despite the use of electronic voting.
Generally, it seems that we are likely to be casting votes via vote-by-mail for a while longer and unlikely that we will go online on a widespread basis anytime soon, plus when we do go online there will still be rancorous debates about the legitimacy of the votes and the voting process.
There does not seem to be any free lunch in resolving the matter of voting in elections.
Here’s an intriguing question: Would the advent of AI-based true self-driving cars make a difference in the voting process, and if so, might self-driving cars help or hinder things?
Let’s unpack the matter and see.
The Levels Of Self-Driving Cars
True self-driving cars are ones that the AI drives the car entirely on its own and there isn’t any human assistance during the driving task.
These driverless vehicles are considered a Level 4 and Level 5, while a car that requires a human driver to co-share the driving effort is usually considered at a Level 2 or Level 3. The cars that co-share the driving task are described as being semi-autonomous, and typically contain a variety of automated add-on’s that are referred to as ADAS (Advanced Driver-Assistance Systems).
There is not yet a true self-driving car at Level 5, which we don’t yet even know if this will be possible to achieve, and nor how long it will take to get there.
Meanwhile, the Level 4 efforts are gradually trying to get some traction by undergoing very narrow and selective public roadway trials, though there is controversy over whether this testing should be allowed per se (we are all life-or-death guinea pigs in an experiment taking place on our highways and byways, some point out).
Since semi-autonomous cars require a human driver, the adoption of those types of cars won’t be markedly different than driving conventional vehicles, so there’s not much new per se to cover about them on this topic (though, as you’ll see in a moment, the points next made are generally applicable).
For semi-autonomous cars, it is important that the public needs to be forewarned about a disturbing aspect that’s been arising lately, namely that in spite of those human drivers that keep posting videos of themselves falling asleep at the wheel of a Level 2 or Level 3 car, we all need to avoid being misled into believing that the driver can take away their attention from the driving task while driving a semi-autonomous car.
You are the responsible party for the driving actions of the vehicle, regardless of how much automation might be tossed into a Level 2 or Level 3.
Self-Driving Cars And Voting
For Level 4 and Level 5 true self-driving vehicles, there won’t be a human driver involved in the driving task.
All occupants will be passengers.
The AI is doing the driving.
That is certainly interesting and somewhat exciting, but you might be perplexed as to why the advent of self-driving cars is somehow related to the topic of vote-by-mail.
They seem to be on entirely different plains or disjoint from each other.
Not so.
Keep in mind that the underlying theme or element of the vote-by-mail topic is the nature of mobility.
Yes, hidden within the vote-by-mail discussion and bitter debate is the matter of mobility, which arose by pointing out that part of the reason for the ballot being mailed to the home is that it aids in undercutting the need to get to a polling place to cast a vote.
Pundits believe that the emergence of AI-based true self-driving cars will be a boon for those that today are mobility disadvantaged. It is hoped that the cost of using cars will radically decrease, presumably partially and to a great extent due to the removal of the need for a human driver, which is an added labor cost and also a logistical barrier too.
It is said that we will finally have mobility-for-all.
In that case, the friction involved in being able to get to a polling place would be dramatically reduced, moving toward being more seamless, though let’s be realistic and agree that there will nonetheless still be some difficulties and hurdles to deal with.
The point being that the use of self-driving cars could reinvigorate the use of polling places, at least on the basis of enabling the mobility side of the equation (obviously, this does not negate the potential post-pandemic concerns about people gathering together, etc.)
At the same time, self-driving cars could further enable the vote-by-mail process.
How so?
Imagine that a self-driving car goes into a neighborhood and proceeds from home to home, stopping to get any ballots cast by those at their homes.
The AI is doing the driving and for the moment let’s assume that no one is inside the vehicle.
In that case, there is no interloper that can somehow sway the voting act, and the self-driving car is merely a means of picking up the ballots. The self-driving car then dutifully and eventually drives to an official receiving center and delivers the ballots. In theory, no human hands touch the ballots during that delivery process, other than the voters that have cast the ballots.
When I refer to self-driving cars, please realize that this kind of pick-up and delivery could be something other than a passenger car.
There are lots of self-driving delivery vehicles that are already emerging (for my coverage on this segment, see the link here), oftentimes being much smaller than a conventional sized car. Thus, the self-driving vehicle might not even have any provision to carry human passengers and solely be used as a pick-up and delivery agent.
The smarmy response would be that someone might do something untoward by grabbing out a ballot that another neighbor put into the vehicle, but this is readily solved by having a deposit box as part of the vehicle. Once a ballot is placed into the locked box, no one else can retrieve it, until the self-driving car reaches the official delivery center where the key to unlocking it would be kept.
Admittedly one downside is the so-called “last mile” curb-to-door of how to have a self-driving car that is parked at the curb be accessible to someone that is in their home and perhaps is unable to physically come out to the curb itself. But this is already a known shipping problem for goods delivery of any kind and there is a multitude of efforts underway to solve it, including robots that either walk or roll-up to the door.
In short, self-driving cars would make it easier to undertake voting by mail, though many aspects would still need to be ironed out, and meanwhile the onset of self-driving cars would also further enable voting at polling places if that’s what society wished to do.
Conclusion
Sorry to say that there are other underbelly aspects too in the matter of self-driving cars and the voting process.
Human interlopers could still be involved.
In fact, the odds are that those “helpers” would be even more readily able to perform their acts since they would have a convenient form of mobility to do so.
With today’s interlopers, they either need to know how to drive or need to find someone that will drive them to the homes for their interloping acts (well, some might use bicycles or walk, but by-and-large it is car-based, one presumes).
In the future, any such interloper becomes merely a passenger, not needing a driver’s license and nor deal with arranging for a human driver.
It just goes to show that humanity is still humanity, regardless of the addition of AI into the formula.
If you believe that these “helpers” are providing a valuable service, you would undoubtedly welcome and be ecstatic that self-driving cars will become their trusted steed and carry them to-and-fro for their noble acts.
If you doubt the efficacy of these interlopers, you would presumably have a distaste for self-driving cars as an enabler, though this might be balanced by the other benefits of self-driving cars toward being the collector of vote-by-mail ballots and for boosting the chances of people coming to polling places.
As I said before, there isn’t any free lunch in any of this, and the societal pluses and minuses are going to continue unabated, including being intricately intertwined with the miraculous advent of self-driving cars.
